IF General Musharraf persists in implementing the election scheme he announced last Sunday in a tense, almost combative, press conference the polls on Jan 9 are bound to be marred by boycott, rigging, may be even violence. It is a safe prediction to make in the face of the total and instant rejection of Musharraf’s plan by the people and governments alike at home and abroad.

Measured by any standard of fair play or expediency, it is ludicrous to expect that the people would be able to vote without fear or duress under a military order that denies to them their right to free speech, assembly and every other fundamental right and access to information. The irony inherent in holding elections to further the objectives of a constitution which itself stands superseded by an extra-constitutional order of the army chief seems to have escaped Musharraf and his advisers but not the rest of the world.

Why Musharraf, as president, having sensibly agreed to hold elections at the earliest possible date under the Constitution does not consider it right and necessary to revoke a proclamation he made as army chief defies common sense.

The emergency was declared for the limited purpose, as the proclamation says, of dealing with “some members of the judiciary (who were) working at cross-purposes with the executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism and thereby weakening the government and the nation’s resolve and diluting the efficacy of its actions to control this menace.”

That purpose having been achieved with the purging of the recalcitrant, or independent, judges prolonging the emergency can only dampen the resolve of the nation to fight the terrorists. Worse, it can put the public peace in jeopardy. The inference justifiably being drawn is that the emergency is being continued not to pursue the terrorists but to facilitate rigging of the ballot.

It would in no manner help fight the terror as no constitutional provision has ever hindered it, only the political alliances of the government and its administrative inaptitude have.

The opponents of the regime have always held, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League more vehemently than others, that fair and free polls would not be ever possible so long as Musharraf is at the helm. That cynicism is now widely shared.

Benazir Bhutto, backed by the Americans, blazed a divergent path by agreeing to coexist with him. For her detractors it was to save her ill-gotten gains. She claimed it was for a peaceful transition to democracy.

The truth lay somewhere in between. But that apart the ‘deal’ signalled the political demise of the assorted coterie that has revelled in power for all these years. They seemingly have succeeded in persuading Musharraf that there are surer ways for him and them too, to remain in power other than restoring to elections that are fair and open to all.

There can be no other plausible explanation for polls and emergency going together when there is no link between the two.Musharraf’s desperate explanation for it is contained in a question he himself posed in a TV appearance the other day: Is democracy or so-called democracy (as he instantly corrected himself) more important than the country?

This question sums up the lasting dilemma of Pakistan’s democracy. Musharraf is not the first one to believe that only he can watch the interests of the country and not the blundering, corrupt politicians of the parliament. Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Z.A. Bhutto, Ziaul Haq, Nawaz Sharif, Farooq Leghari and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, all coming from diverse backgrounds and channels, thought the same way.

They all applied their own remedies which may have resulted in more assured economic development but political stability remained elusive. Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan devised a system of guided or basic democracy; Bhutto starting as the president and chief martial law administrator grudgingly yielded to parliamentary system but just suffered it; Ziaul Haq wanted a nominated or at best a non-party elected advisory council and actually named it as such — Majlis-i-Shoora.

And so it remains to this day. GIK and Farooq Leghari dissolved one parliament after another only to get rid of irksome, grasping prime ministers. Nawaz Sharif conjured up a one-page Shariat bill to make the parliament irrelevant. But time and luck ran out on him.

Neither their versions of democracy nor its conventional form took root; only authoritarianism dug its roots deeper. Musharraf sought to build a ‘real’ democracy and his personal power on indirectly elected district governments.

To appease the distracted assemblies and cabinets he enlarged both and enormously increased the pay and perks of their members but kept all power to himself. In the process the institutions have been so weakened or subverted that in the eighth year of untrammelled power he has been compelled to invoke his authority as chief of the army staff to punish the defiant judges and to lay down the framework for democratic elections by putting the Constitution in abeyance.

Against this background Musharraf finds it difficult to comprehend any suggestion that a fairly elected parliament in which the parties of Benazir, Nawaz Sharif, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and all the rest are represented would help him win the war on terror which he on his own has been losing. If not to his own people he should listen to the Americans who are bank-rolling our war on terror by more than billion dollars a year – twice as much as Pakistan gets in economic aid.

Musharraf should also pay heed to the ultimatums of the Commonwealth, the European Union and Japan who too have a stake in Pakistan’s economy as well as in its war on terror. More damaging are the concerns aired by the Amnesty International, Transparency International, Human Rights Watch and many others who have neither stake nor bias. For once Musharraf should consider that he alone cannot be right.

It is a few advisers, Pervaiz Elahi, Sheikh Rashid, Sher Afgan, and others versus the rest of humanity.

They have made Musharraf, in stages, destroy the bureaucracy and subvert the judiciary, alienate the Pathan and Baloch tribes, the nationalists and the liberals and even the theologians of the madressahs they sought to pamper. They would not let the Sharif clan come back.

They heaped ridicule on Benazir by describing her token resistance to the regime after a negotiated return as noora kushti – fixed bout – and thus have driven her into total hostility.

Goaded by his self-serving advisers Musharraf is headed for elections which may turn out to be as forlorn as was his referendum but can do much more damage. By revoking the proclamation of emergency at the same time as the election schedule is announced he can save himself and the country a lot of trouble.

ONE can see light beyond the tunnel of emergency. But what is seen is rather dim. The envisaged reshuffling, on the induction of Ms Benazir Bhutto in the equation can, at best, raise the politics of status quo a notch higher, thus nearer to its peak. The long march for democracy has yet miles and miles to go after the nation awakens from its slumber.

Many loops and tangles of the present political situation will be demystified if one keeps in view the fact that the core of the status quo is the continuity of the supremacy of the sub-institution of the army. It insists on holding sway over the people of the country. It normalises relations with its neighbours, which in itself is laudable, and is thus free to concentrate on its internal antagonists. Even after its debacle in Dhaka in 1971, it did not lift martial law. A civilian was inducted as chief martial law administrator. Within half a decade it regrouped, and was back in power under Gen Ziaul Haq.

In the present stalemate the army brass ignored the pinpricks of false leads and pursued the main lead of splitting the democratic movement right in the middle by distancing the PPP from the PML (N). It performed the operation with finesse. People saw the pictures of President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto in Dubai, heard rumours of a deal/dheel, and Mr Nawaz Sharif launched the APDM in London as a counterweight to the ARD. The Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirots of the agencies outsmarted the two main democratic leaders by their mute shadow play.

However, the lawyers threw a spanner in the works. Right from the movement for the restoration of the Chief Justice to the Supreme Court to the verdict against the emergency the very day it was promulgated, the government was caught napping. The nation owes a debt of thanks to Mr Aitzaz Ahsan for the Supreme Court verdict. He was, of course, one of the main stalwarts in the current movement. The army-judiciary nexus has been the mainstay for authoritarian rule. However, the lawyers’ movement has far wider ramifications. Here it will suffice to say that the said movement points to a more self-confident Pakistan.

At the moment our focus is on Ms Benazir Bhutto. The ongoing protest against the emergency/martial law is emboldening her and she is upping the ante. The president has been ‘moderate’ in dealing with her as big brother in Washington is watching.

Ms Bhutto is astute enough not to deviate from her written or unwritten script. She may enjoy the protection of the Americans but she cannot trust the army. The examples of Adnan Menderes and her own father must be haunting her.

The future dispensation is thus taking clearer shape. President Musharraf will be around if he retains the confidence of the Americans, otherwise the next army chief will be there. The PPP, PML-Q and the MQM will be there. How many seats the PPP will get after the fair or rigged elections is yet to be seen. Maybe, the slippery Maulana Fazlur Rehman will also be roped in. But three points must be highlighted.

First, forecasting the future is risky business. The situation changes within hours. It is quite possible that by the time this piece appears in print it is overtaken by events. The reader himself will have to calculate what twists and turns have made the envisaged sequence of events outdated. The gagging of the electronic media slows the people’s response, an advantage for the government.

Secondly, the caretaker government that is inducted into office wholly or partially will to a great extent clip the wings of the democratic forces. And this clipping would be long lasting. We have left behind the 1970s when the elites could bounce back after a tactical retreat. The civilian aspect will ultimately grow. A step in that direction will at least increase the breathing space available to civil society. The country can go towards transformation only by transition.

Thirdly, what will happen if the lawyers’ movement gains momentum? This is a million-dollar hope. All that can be said at the moment is that the pace of the transition will be quickened for which the whole nation and much of the world is impatiently waiting.

LAWYERS were recently out once again to oppose the present government’s assault on the Constitution. They boycotted the courts, came out on the streets, organised rallies, marches, and demonstrations.

There were indications that groups of students and certain organs of civil society might join hands with them. To date these endeavours have not produced anything comparable to the movement the lawyers had mounted following the suspension of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Mar 9.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its chairperson, Ms Benazir Bhutto, who until recently were expecting to enter a ‘power-sharing’ arrangement with General Musharraf, now feel called upon to launch a mass movement to thwart his pursuit of power. She and other protesters demand lifting of the emergency, restoration of the Constitution, reinstatement of the judges who were sent away, release of political prisoners, and holding of free and fair elections,

The United States government declared its opposition to General Musharraf’s suspension of the Constitution and related measures. White House and State Department spokesmen asked him to withdraw them.

They said he should understand that America’s patience with his ways could not be unlimited. President Bush was reported to have said the same to him in a telephone conversation. Leading members of the US House of Representatives and Senate spoke of cutting aid to Pakistan. The British foreign secretary, Commonwealth secretary, the French president, and the European Union likewise condemned the imposition of emergency rule and called for a return to the path of democracy.

Ms Bhutto declined to join hands with PML-N, the MMA, and other parties to initiate a mass movement against Musharraf’s rule, professedly, because she wanted to continue her ‘dialogue’ with him for working out a power-sharing arrangement and a peaceful transition to democracy.

Now that the general has given up the idea of recruiting her, she has been sending emissaries to other political leaders to have them join her in launching an anti-Musharraf mass movement.

Mr Nawaz Sharif, whom she had earlier given understandings and then broken them, and other political leaders say they will consider her invitation if she undertakes not to have any more ‘dialogues’ with the general.

Ms Bhutto has chosen to proceed on her own and attempted to launch her movement. The government has deployed massive and ruthless force to frustrate her. She was placed under house arrest. Hundreds of policemen surrounded her places of residence in Islamabad and Lahore, forcing her to stay home.

Her planned public meeting in Rawalpindi on Nov 9 did not materialise and the long march from Lahore to Islamabad had to begin without her on an uncertain course. PPP notables and workers were tear gassed and baton charged, and thousands of them were said to have been arrested and sent to jail. It may be assumed that the government intends to treat other launchers of a mass movement in like manner.

Twice only in our experience has a mass movement become irresistible and ousted an unwanted government: the one that forced out Ayub Khan in Mar 1969, and that which brought Zulfikar Ali Bhutto down in July 1977. These two movements enlisted thousands of protesters, and each lasted for several months, because they involved volatile issues.

Ayub Khan was believed to have lost at the conference table in Tashkent (Jan 1966) the victory the nation’s soldiers had reportedly won on the field of battle during the preceding war with India. His detractors described his performance at the peace conference as treacherous.

The Bhutto regime’s extensive rigging of the 1977 election was a grave issue made graver by his allegedly profligate conduct and the atrocities his agents had inflicted on his political opponents. Above all his party, the PPP, was in disarray at the time and in no condition to withstand the opposition’s onslaught.

The present situation (emergency rule and related measures) is probably as grave as that created by electoral rigging in 1977. The level of political awareness is probably now higher than it was then. Now there is also the lawyers’ movement of which there was no counterpart in 1977. Nevertheless, one cannot be sure that the masses will set aside the tasks of earning a living and remain on the streets as long as it takes to get the emergency lifted. Consider also that the potential mass mobilisers are not entirely trusting of one another, particularly of Ms Bhutto.

General Musharraf is not likely to withdraw the measures he has taken. American pressure, more than the domestic, may persuade him to shorten the duration of emergency rule.

Several considerations will bear on his decision in this regard. By issuing and enforcing the proclamation of emergency General Musharraf, the army chief, has invited the charge and penalties specified in Article 6 of the Constitution.

He has to find a way of avoiding that liability. General Ziaul Haq avoided it by getting the parliament resulting from the 1985 election to condone his lawless actions via the 8th amendment to the Constitution; General Musharraf got the parliament resulting from the elections of 2002 to do the same for him via the 17th amendment. It seems to me that he will have to ask the next parliament to take him off the hook once again.

What kind of leverage will he have with this parliament? The same as he did in 2002 and Ziaul Haq had in 1985: he will offer to revoke the proclamation of emergency if it agrees to indemnify his promulgation of the same and the actions he took in its pursuance.

He had issued the proclamation in his capacity as the army chief. He may have to retain that capacity to revoke it. There are varying reports as to what he intends to do and when. We will have to wait and see.

He has been saying that he will take off his uniform when he takes the oath of office as president for another term. He will take that oath after the Supreme Court has decided the petitions concerning his candidacy for the presidential election and allowed the Election Commission to notify his victory.

This process, he said the other day, could take several months. I am not sure why that has to be the case. It may be that his counsel will argue his case in a leisurely fashion and request adjournments, which the court will grant.

Thus, the occasion for him to take the oath, and take off his uniform, may not arise until all impediments in his way have been cleared and he is ready for these transactions.

Now that he has scheduled the promised elections for the first week of January, external pressure on him will probably ease. With the emergency rule still in effect, their credibility will be in doubt. One way out may be that even if the emergency is not formally lifted, restrictions on expression, assembly, and movement are left unimplemented.

The writer is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk